Venice Biennale and my SPAR Partnership

May 31, 2019

“May you live in interesting times” is the slogan of this year’s Venice Art Biennale.

And May was indeed an interesting time for me, in the good sense.

On the 9th, it was ten years since I made the big leap and opened my studio at Vegagatan in Lund to the public.

And on the 11th, the “Personal Structures” exhibition at the European Cultural Centre’s (ECC) beautiful Palazzo Mora in Venice opened with 170 artists’ works, one of which was my SPAR installation.

It happens in the context of the world’s most important contemporary art event, the 58th Venice Art Biennale.

I’ve never had an exhibition outside my studio. As a matter of fact and incredible to myself, I jumped straight from my home studio to being invited to the Venice Biennale.

With the help of all the wonderful people at ECC, the SPAR – Silk Peace Art Road – was ready four days before the opening. And then I spent the rest of the month talking to 40-50 people a day in front of it. People from all over the world.

Now I know that it works as a dialogue creator and not “just” as an art piece.

– with friends at Mora in Venice

When explaining the thoughts behind, people reacted – without exception – very positively, took interest in the theme of the Road, the Silk Road and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and openly shared their concerns and their hopes for the future of our common world.

It’s been an ongoing seminar – talking with close to a thousand people from all continents, age groups and walks of life.

It has been so encouraging and full of positive energy. I feel happy beyond my wildest expectations. I put all my energy behind this project and feel I succeeded and now have a network of art photo friends and colleagues.

In addition, I managed to see many other art exhibitions, both the official Biennale and the – often more interesting, innovative – art manifestations around Venice. There are 229 in all so no way you can see it all.

And now back home for a while begins a new task:

To get the SPAR installation traveling and being shown along the Silk Road/BRI from Venice to China.

Concretely, I am looking for galleries, cultural/art centres, museums, public spaces, universities or whatever where it can be shown and dialogues about our future world could take place with many and different audiences.

Like in Venice.

It is all explained in my new Exhibition Partnership Program.

Please help me with contacts and ideas!

What else?

A new portfolio containing the single photos and the collages that sit in the SPAR installation with – at the end – 20 close-ups of details from the painting and the interaction between photographs (on canvas) and painting.

These new works are not in the shop yet – but will be soon.

A couple of “PostArt” Newsletters that reach more and more people and has an increasing open-rate.

And daily updates – and not only about myself… – on Oberg PhotoGraphics on Instagram. Please follow!

And finally, a video about the amazing Black American artist Purvis Young on my blog for other artists’ work.

Skot Foreman, the gallerist who exhibited Purvis Young’s
truly unique paintings at Palazzo Mora

Subscribe to my “PostArt” newsletter

Would love to read your views, ideas or suggestions here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.